Milton plate 1; copy A, British Museum.
Plate 1 of Milton presents a nude man, the spiritual form of the poet John Milton, against a background of smoke and flames. In copy A, the vortex of billowing smoke is clearly shown emerging from Milton’s left palm and, to a lesser extent, from his right wrist. (It is not so obvious in some later impressions; and is ignored by many commentators.) At the bottom is Milton’s motto from Paradise Lost: To Justify the Ways of God to Men.
Source-hunting, searching for the origin of elements of an image in an earlier artist’s work, is one of the most maligned activities in art scholarship. When it is merely an end in itself, then it very much takes its place at the lower levels of the art-historical enterprise. But it seems to me that William Blake’s extraordinary visual memory (paintings seen just once provoke ideas years later), means that source-hunting in Blake provides a much-needed contextualisation of his work in both the visual and the literary resources that were available to him.
Nelson Hilton has remarked the strong resemblance between the titlepage of Blake’s Milton and EMBLEM I, “The wind hath carried it in his belly”, of Michael Maier’s Atalanta fugiens (1617). In Maier’s EMBLEM I, a pregnant man stands, his hands and head emitting currents of wind, cloud, or smoke. Within his belly we see a child beginning to form. Maier’s wind (or anima, or spiritus), notes Hilton, “carries its potential for dynamic expression to term, as the Word bears its vortex”, a vortex which the reader of Milton is about to enter. But how likely is it that Blake might have access to this rare alchemical emblem book? Quite plausibly it seems.
Atalanta fugiens is the best-known work of Michael Maier, Lutheran physician and alchemist, often credited with bringing Rosicrucianism to England. Its fifty emblems combine words, images, and music, in a Gesamtkunstwerk. There are resemblances between other of Blake’s designs and the emblematic images of Atalanta fugiens besides that spotted by Nelson Hilton. Suzanne Sklar and Paul T. Miner have also drawn our attention to Blakean imagery probably deriving from Maier’s book. I hope to return to this in a later post.
We do not know the extent of Blake’s reading; he definitely had access to William Hayley’s library from 1797; could he also have had access to the remarkable libraries of those who met with Blake as friends and as collectors of his work? Two of the most significant would have been Rebekah Bliss (1749-1819) and Alexander Tilloch (1759-1825).
In 1797, Blake, with a host of other engravers, was co-signatory to a testimonial in favour of an approach to printing banknotes devised by Tilloch, inventor, publisher, newspaper editor, Biblical controversialist, and member of a Rosicrucian order. Blake, I would suggest, had known Tilloch from his arrival in London in the 1780s (Tilloch may be identified as the character Tilly Lally in Blake’s An Island in the Moon of 1788 or so) and they had common friends and theological interests. Tilloch’s library, sold shortly after his death in 1825, reflected his many intellectual interests with an extensive collection of alchemical printed books and manuscripts. Lot 232: Majeri Secreta Naturæ Chymica, 1687, was a posthumously published abridgement of Atalanta fugiens.
The Bliss and Tilloch libraries are important indications of the intellectual and cultural context of Blake’s circles of friendship. Did Blake have access to the medieval illuminated manuscripts and Oriental books in the Bliss collection? Did friendship with Tilloch provide access to Tilloch’s alchemical books, theology, texts and editions of the Bible, and Greek and Hebrew dictionaries? Whether or not he had direct access to these libraries, acquaintanceship with their owners could well have influenced him.
The elements that make up the Milton titlepage clearly have Biblical connotations. The clouds of smoke and flames bring to mind the wanderings of the Children of Israel.
Note too, how the image is centred on Milton’s buttocks (which appear again on plates 8 and 15) and which, with the EXODUS theme already established, recall how GOD appeared to Moses.
Christians hope to see the LORD face to face, but all Moses and the Jews get is JEHOVAH’s enormous bottom wobbling into the distance. We shouldn’t be po-faced about this. Readers of the Bible have long found GOD’s “back parts” (Vulgate: posteriora) irresistibly comic. For instance, Chaucer in the “Summoner’s Tale” employs scriptural allusions in his tale of the bedridden Thomas’s gift and its codicil. He develops both the characters and the plot around the scatological scenes. Chaucer also employs scatology to emphasize his theme of just rewards. In doing so, he relies heavily upon biblical parallels that satirize the friars’ hypocrisy. Typological exegesis demonstrates that, if the squire Jankin’s division of the fart with a cartwheel suggests the HOLY GHOST’s windy descent to the Apostles at Pentecost, Thomas’s first gift recalls the events in the lives of Moses and Elijah that Pentecost fulfills. The “Summoners Tale” can thus be seen as an intentional perversion of scriptural history. For every religious reference, there’s a bum joke; scatology follows eschatology. And we know Blake had read Chaucer attentively. Chaucerean scatology is much written-about; Blakean scatology remains a theme but little explored.
There’s another possible source for figures with smoke emerging from their hands in the library of Rebekah Bliss. Mrs Bliss, our earliest known collector of work by William Blake (she had copies of the Songs, and For Children: The Gates of Paradise as early as 1794), had a serious interest in Indian culture and her library reflected her passionate interest in the art of the Orient with Mughal miniatures, Persian poetry, and Sanskrit scrolls. Printed books on India in the posthumous sale of Mrs Bliss’s Bibliotheca splendidissima (1826) include as lot 345, Balthazard Solvyns, Les Hindous (Paris, 1808), elaborately bound in four volumes. A plate in Vol. I shows the expiatory festival of Neela Pooja. The participants burn incense in the palms of their hands and it would have been in her library that Blake could have seen this work.
F. Balthazard Solvyns, Les hindoûs. 2 vols. (Paris, 1808): [1re Section Livraison IIme]; No 1. Double-plate: NILA-PAYAH: NYLAR-POUDJAH = NILA POUJA | VARIOUS EXPIATIONS OF THE HINDOOS.
Detail showing devotees of the Goddess holding smoking incense in the palms of their hands.
Sources and Further Reading
Elizabeth C. Effinger.—”Anal Blake: bringing up the rear in Blakean criticism”, in Queer Blake. Edited by Helen P. Bruder and Tristanne Connolly.—Houndmills, Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.—pp. 63-73.
Nelson Hilton.—Literal imagination: Blake’s vision of words.—Berkeley CA: University of California Press, 1983.
Ian Lancashire.--”Moses, Elijah and the Back Parts of God: Satiric Scatology in Chaucer’s ‘Summoner’s Tale’“.--Mosaic 14 (1981, 17-30.
Michael Maier.—Atalanta fugiens.—Frankfurt am Main, 1617.
 |
Atalanta fugiens, EMBLEMA I. De secretis naturæ. Portavit eum ventus in ventre suo. |
Atalanta fugiens is the best-known work of Michael Maier, Lutheran physician and alchemist, often credited with bringing Rosicrucianism to England. Its fifty emblems combine words, images, and music, in a Gesamtkunstwerk. There are resemblances between other of Blake’s designs and the emblematic images of Atalanta fugiens besides that spotted by Nelson Hilton. Suzanne Sklar and Paul T. Miner have also drawn our attention to Blakean imagery probably deriving from Maier’s book. I hope to return to this in a later post.
We do not know the extent of Blake’s reading; he definitely had access to William Hayley’s library from 1797; could he also have had access to the remarkable libraries of those who met with Blake as friends and as collectors of his work? Two of the most significant would have been Rebekah Bliss (1749-1819) and Alexander Tilloch (1759-1825).
In 1797, Blake, with a host of other engravers, was co-signatory to a testimonial in favour of an approach to printing banknotes devised by Tilloch, inventor, publisher, newspaper editor, Biblical controversialist, and member of a Rosicrucian order. Blake, I would suggest, had known Tilloch from his arrival in London in the 1780s (Tilloch may be identified as the character Tilly Lally in Blake’s An Island in the Moon of 1788 or so) and they had common friends and theological interests. Tilloch’s library, sold shortly after his death in 1825, reflected his many intellectual interests with an extensive collection of alchemical printed books and manuscripts. Lot 232: Majeri Secreta Naturæ Chymica, 1687, was a posthumously published abridgement of Atalanta fugiens.
The Bliss and Tilloch libraries are important indications of the intellectual and cultural context of Blake’s circles of friendship. Did Blake have access to the medieval illuminated manuscripts and Oriental books in the Bliss collection? Did friendship with Tilloch provide access to Tilloch’s alchemical books, theology, texts and editions of the Bible, and Greek and Hebrew dictionaries? Whether or not he had direct access to these libraries, acquaintanceship with their owners could well have influenced him.
◆
The elements that make up the Milton titlepage clearly have Biblical connotations. The clouds of smoke and flames bring to mind the wanderings of the Children of Israel.
EXODUS 13:21 And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night:
Note too, how the image is centred on Milton’s buttocks (which appear again on plates 8 and 15) and which, with the EXODUS theme already established, recall how GOD appeared to Moses.
EXODUS 33:22 And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by:
23 And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.
Christians hope to see the LORD face to face, but all Moses and the Jews get is JEHOVAH’s enormous bottom wobbling into the distance. We shouldn’t be po-faced about this. Readers of the Bible have long found GOD’s “back parts” (Vulgate: posteriora) irresistibly comic. For instance, Chaucer in the “Summoner’s Tale” employs scriptural allusions in his tale of the bedridden Thomas’s gift and its codicil. He develops both the characters and the plot around the scatological scenes. Chaucer also employs scatology to emphasize his theme of just rewards. In doing so, he relies heavily upon biblical parallels that satirize the friars’ hypocrisy. Typological exegesis demonstrates that, if the squire Jankin’s division of the fart with a cartwheel suggests the HOLY GHOST’s windy descent to the Apostles at Pentecost, Thomas’s first gift recalls the events in the lives of Moses and Elijah that Pentecost fulfills. The “Summoners Tale” can thus be seen as an intentional perversion of scriptural history. For every religious reference, there’s a bum joke; scatology follows eschatology. And we know Blake had read Chaucer attentively. Chaucerean scatology is much written-about; Blakean scatology remains a theme but little explored.
◆
There’s another possible source for figures with smoke emerging from their hands in the library of Rebekah Bliss. Mrs Bliss, our earliest known collector of work by William Blake (she had copies of the Songs, and For Children: The Gates of Paradise as early as 1794), had a serious interest in Indian culture and her library reflected her passionate interest in the art of the Orient with Mughal miniatures, Persian poetry, and Sanskrit scrolls. Printed books on India in the posthumous sale of Mrs Bliss’s Bibliotheca splendidissima (1826) include as lot 345, Balthazard Solvyns, Les Hindous (Paris, 1808), elaborately bound in four volumes. A plate in Vol. I shows the expiatory festival of Neela Pooja. The participants burn incense in the palms of their hands and it would have been in her library that Blake could have seen this work.
F. Balthazard Solvyns, Les hindoûs. 2 vols. (Paris, 1808): [1re Section Livraison IIme]; No 1. Double-plate: NILA-PAYAH: NYLAR-POUDJAH = NILA POUJA | VARIOUS EXPIATIONS OF THE HINDOOS.
Detail showing devotees of the Goddess holding smoking incense in the palms of their hands.
◆
Sources and Further Reading
Elizabeth C. Effinger.—”Anal Blake: bringing up the rear in Blakean criticism”, in Queer Blake. Edited by Helen P. Bruder and Tristanne Connolly.—Houndmills, Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.—pp. 63-73.
Nelson Hilton.—Literal imagination: Blake’s vision of words.—Berkeley CA: University of California Press, 1983.
Ian Lancashire.--”Moses, Elijah and the Back Parts of God: Satiric Scatology in Chaucer’s ‘Summoner’s Tale’“.--Mosaic 14 (1981, 17-30.
Michael Maier.—Atalanta fugiens.—Frankfurt am Main, 1617.
Reissued at Oppenheim in 1618, with corrections and a portrait. Secreta Naturæ Chymica, otherwise Scrutinium chymicum, 1687, is a posthumously published abridgement.
There are several modern editions. In 1964 the music publisher Bärenreiter of Kassel issued a facsimile of the 1618 edition, with an Afterword by L.M. Wüthrich. A French version by Etienne Perrot (Atalante fugitive, 1969) is scrupulously accurate and carries excellent notes. Perrot has also published a commentary on the work entitled Les trois pommes d’or: commentaire sur l’Atalante fugitive de Michel Maier (Paris, 1981). An English summary (an abbreviated translation) is contained in H.M.E. de Jong, Michael Maier’s Atalanta fugiens: Sources of an Alchemical Book of Emblems (Leiden, 1969). This book, based on her doctoral thesis, situates Maier in a context of medieval alchemical writings and imagery. More recently, Joscelyn Godwin in Michael Maier’s Atalanta fugiens (1617), an Edition of the Fugues, Emblems and Epigrams. With an Introductory Essay by Hildemarie Streich. Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks; 22 (Oxford : Adam McLean, 1987) has produced a performing edition of the music accompanied by a cassette-recording. The complete series of emblems is reproduced in Stanislas Klossowski de Rola, The Golden Game (London, 1988), but without the epigrams or the discourses.
F. Balthazard Solvyns.—Les hindoûs.—2 vols.—Paris : chez l’auteur, place Saint-Andre-des-Arcs, no 11, et chez H. Nicolle, rue de Seine, no 12, à la librairie stèrèotype, de l’imprimerie de Mame frères, 1808.
There are several modern editions. In 1964 the music publisher Bärenreiter of Kassel issued a facsimile of the 1618 edition, with an Afterword by L.M. Wüthrich. A French version by Etienne Perrot (Atalante fugitive, 1969) is scrupulously accurate and carries excellent notes. Perrot has also published a commentary on the work entitled Les trois pommes d’or: commentaire sur l’Atalante fugitive de Michel Maier (Paris, 1981). An English summary (an abbreviated translation) is contained in H.M.E. de Jong, Michael Maier’s Atalanta fugiens: Sources of an Alchemical Book of Emblems (Leiden, 1969). This book, based on her doctoral thesis, situates Maier in a context of medieval alchemical writings and imagery. More recently, Joscelyn Godwin in Michael Maier’s Atalanta fugiens (1617), an Edition of the Fugues, Emblems and Epigrams. With an Introductory Essay by Hildemarie Streich. Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks; 22 (Oxford : Adam McLean, 1987) has produced a performing edition of the music accompanied by a cassette-recording. The complete series of emblems is reproduced in Stanislas Klossowski de Rola, The Golden Game (London, 1988), but without the epigrams or the discourses.
F. Balthazard Solvyns.—Les hindoûs.—2 vols.—Paris : chez l’auteur, place Saint-Andre-des-Arcs, no 11, et chez H. Nicolle, rue de Seine, no 12, à la librairie stèrèotype, de l’imprimerie de Mame frères, 1808.
◆◆
Further comment
ReplyDelete1. Why is John Milton nude? Is he, like the prophet Isaiah, or the early Quakers, going naked for a sign?
2. Michelangelo depicts God with bare buttocks on the Sistine Chapel ceiling in the Creation sequence showing the creation of vegetation.
3. Chaucer gives us more bum jokes in The Miller’s Tale.